Frost in the Veins
by Wolfstorm7
Summary: Somewhere buried deep, Loki had known what he was. He'd known all along.


Hey :)

Enjoy Loki through the ages!

~oO0Oo~oO0Oo~oO0Oo~oO0Oo~oO0Oo~oO0Oo~oO0Oo~oO0Oo~oO0Oo~oO0Oo~

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><p><strong>7<strong>

"What am I?" His voice was nearly a shriek. His eyes blistered up with tears, but he didn't wipe them away for fear his father would see his shaking hands.

Odin held himself limply. _Don't you know, Loki?_

* * *

><p><strong>5<strong>

Another winter's night, and light swung from the high tower window. Merry light and candle smoke. The figures in the window frame were shadows.

Loki felt the gritty earth with his fingers as he sat in the dark below.

"Snow!" A laughing voice in the lit room. "Isn't that odd? Maybe it's a sign."

Loki attempted not to look, but his eyes were dragged back to the window. As he had known he would see, there was the man with the golden hair and a red cape. Small flakes of snow brushed past, and another shape joined the first in the window. Loki looked down.

The coronation would be soon.

He sat on the cracked earth below the kings' tower and drew swirls in the powder with his fingertips. Snowflakes gravitated toward him like famished dogs, all begging for his touch. They stuck to his skin for a time longer.

He tried not to think. He apologized.

Lines circled him until he sat inside a tiny labyrinth, and his fingertips were dirty and blue.

* * *

><p><strong>2<strong>

The cold light.

"Don't you feel it?" He stretched his hand towards the casket.

Thor shook his head.

"Sometimes I see it in my dreams." Loki's confession escaped his lips as a cloud of white. The blond boy followed the wispy puff with his eyes. His hands were tucked under his armpits and he bounced nervously.

The weapon vault's pool water crackled as Loki edged closer – as the casket reeled him in. His eyes were half-mast and shimmered with a blue reflection. He reached out tentatively to touch the icy light.

Thor, shaking madly, pulled him away.

His brother did not share his desire.

* * *

><p><strong>4<strong>

He wore his best cloak and held his breath when the moment came.

The old man's lips pursed slowly, and as Loki watched, he realized he already knew. Finally when the word was pushed forth, when the word was born into the room short and raw, scrambling about and begging for readmittance – he knew that he had already known.

"Thor." It was like a whisper to Loki. The crowd's hands stretched out their congratulations. Their mouths gaped open and closed like fishes', hollering and cheering. The air began to ring and Loki's vision splintered like ice.

His own tongue moved in a pantomime of his brother's name, a spastic twitch on his jaw.

He watched his brother laugh. Thor's teeth were lined along his gums like organ keys, all white and black spaces. Here is The King.

Here is the favorite.

* * *

><p><strong>3<strong>

Odin stroked the sleepy boy's head.

"Father?" Loki murmured.

"Yes?"

It took a moment to formulate a thought. "I dreamed that I was in a land of snow last night."

Odin nodded. "Does this mean anything to you?"

He examined his father's face for any sign. "No. Is it a sign?"

"Of what?"

"I don't know."

But when he closed his eyes, he saw the white and the darkness – and he felt the storm rage inside himself. He knew. As his father turned to go, Loki's voice burst a pitch higher. "Father?"

"Yes?" His father stopped in the doorway and they were both frozen for a moment. The question was sour ice on his tongue – _Why-_

But he could never ask it.

"Never mind," the boy whispered. "I've forgotten."

* * *

><p><strong>6<strong>

The ale was cold already. He'd been sitting at the table for far much more time than anyone could guess, under the clock that read, in the dusky light, midnight.

He felt the glass in his hand, looked at it. Then slowly, he opened his fist, peeling back finger by finger.

The glass fell and shattered. Shining crystal slivers, like bits of ice, suddenly decorated his floor. He stood, clutched at his arms, and dug in his nails so that he could feel warmth.

"I am your son," he hissed.

He reached down and picked up a broken sliver, put it in his mouth. It didn't cut his tongue, and somehow, he had known it wouldn't. Because it wasn't even glass.

* * *

><p><strong>1<strong>

His mother held his small hands to her chest, her lips curved in a smile. "Feel my heartbeat?" Hers' was fast, like a cricket drum. He wondered at it.

She set him down and rubbed the skin at her neckline. "Your hands are freezing cold, Loki."

He apologized.

Later as he padded through the lone corridors, he slipped his hand under his jacket. He felt a slow, dark thrum, and knew he had a winter heart.

* * *

><p><strong>8<strong>

"What am I?"

His father was silent, the old fool.

"TELL ME!"

"You are my son," Odin whispered. He held fast to the step and drowned in air.

_Don't you know, Loki?_

* * *

><p>Maybe he had known for a long time.<p>

Maybe he had known all along.

But as his father collapsed, he forgot what he knew, forgot what he didn't, and rushed to Odin's side. The question that was ice on his tongue – _Why do you love Thor more than me?- _was absent from his mind for the first time in his life.

He reached out tentatively to touch his father's hand.

* * *

><p>~oO0Oo~oO0Oo~oO0Oo~oO0Oo~oO0Oo~oO0Oo~oO0Oo~oO0Oo~oO0Oo~oO0Oo~<p>

Hope you enjoyed!

I wrote this in September, but I took my time getting it up on ffdotnet. As you could probably tell, I have this thing for snow.

Reviews make me insanely happy. Hint hint.


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